The Hermits of Big Sur by Paula Huston

Author:Paula Huston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Published: 2021-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

From left, in black, Bernard Massicotte, Anselmo Giabbani, Aliprando Catani, Clemente Roggi, early 1960s

Possibly the most thrilling change of all, however, was the decision on the part of Prior Roggi, along with the Domestic Council, that picnics were now okay on the monthly recreation days. Picnics! Perhaps, went the reasoning, it would be good to strive for less rigidity and coldness. It might even be healthy for the monks to get to know individual community members as fellow human beings. Other monks should not be viewed as threats to one’s own recollection. At the same time, of course, everyone had a duty to preserve and protect what was most precious about eremitical life: its beautiful silence.

Another welcome change: with the completion of the library and kitchen buildings, the bulk of the construction project was finally over. The monks were now free to turn their attention to the land itself. They’d necessarily been farmers from the beginning, and given their isolated location, that wasn’t changing any time soon. The good news was that they were getting better at it. This year’s garden, for example, boasted 150 yards by 150 yards of beans, corn, beets, salsify, onions, rutabaga, okra, beets, and squash. And as Roggi recorded in the Hermitage Chronicle in his slightly whimsical English, the sow had produced “11 piglings!”8

However, most of the hermitage’s nine hundred acres were not farmland, but mixed forest. Old Camaldoli was famous for its well-tended, healthy forests, and the community was determined to adopt that proud heritage in Big Sur. One day, 7,500 Bishop pine starts were brought from Davis and the monks began planting them the next morning. Unfortunately, at the same time they were putting tree seedlings in the ground, their magnificent Redwood stands were being decimated. Loggers and hunters had in the past been allowed on the grounds in exchange for a contribution, and now when they were asked to stop, they refused to do so. New Camaldoli’s neighbors were upset that the monks couldn’t seem to halt the logging, and that bothered the community too. But the final straw was a full-page story, plus photos, in the Monterey Peninsula Herald. The monks, it said, were allowing their beautiful old trees to be destroyed. The community was extremely embarrassed—and further appalled when they went to the logging site. “A half-naked forest,” one of them sighed, “is not a beautiful sight.”9 The diminutive French Canadian monk Bernard Massicotte was charged with negotiating with the loggers. A charmer in a black beret, he succeeded in arranging for a temporary cessation of the destruction until the issue could be resolved.

But his forest problems were not over. A group of hippies wanted to use the hermitage road to drive back and forth to their mining claim. Some of the monks were concerned—hippies after all!—but Massicotte thought the very best policy would be to allow them to do what they wanted and treat them with respect as long as they promised not to disturb the community. As he

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